Online retailer Amazon has asked a federal judge to throw out Apple’s legal maneuvering seeking to challenging Amazon’s use of the “Appstore” term due to similarities with Apple’s App Store trademark. The contention erupted in March of last year, when Apple sued Amazon over the App Store moniker. The online retailer was using the ‘app store’ term in their developer portal and other marketing materials, with Apple arguing the similarity with its own App Store name may have led to customer confusion…

Cupertino last November stepped up efforts to protect the App Store name just as Amazon was beginning to promote the Amazon Appstore for Android apps. Earlier this summer, Apple summoned an Amazon executive for court testimony over the decision to drop the words “for Android” from some of Amazon’s app store branding.

Amazon is now calling its Android store simply the Amazon Appstore. Apple says this change could have contributed to confusion among consumers.

Reuters reports that Amazon is riding on the fact that both Tim Cook and Steve Jobs publicly used the “app store” term on numerous occasions, with Jobs referring to the “four app stores on Android”.

Amazon also wrote in court filings:

Apple presumably does not contend that its past and current CEOs made false statements regarding to those other app stores to thousands of investors in earnings calls.

To the contrary, the use of the term ‘app store’ to refer to stores selling apps is commonplace in the industry.

What do you think, does Apple holds exclusive rights to the “App Store” term given the time and money it invested in promoting the iOS application store?